#alexandrafuller

How I read a book and thought about my Whiteness

This is a review of a book I read last June while visiting a friend in Port Elizabeth. It moved me deeply because of its subject matter; it made me laugh and it made me bawl my eyes out. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and so I bought it for my mother to read and then I bought it again when I saw it at a second hand book sale.

Alexander Fuller, was born in England in 1969 and then was shipped off to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with her family when she was three.

Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is a biography in many ways, whose central character is Alexandra’s mum; Nicola Fuller. Poignant and honest; this is a book every African should read.

“War is Africa’s perpetual ripe fruit. There is so much injustice to resolve, such desire for revenge in the blood of the people, such crippling corruption of power, such unseemly scramble for the natural resources. The wind of power shifts and there go the fruit again, tumbling toward the ground, each war more inventively terrible than the last”

I have felt out of place ever since I was born. And yet my soul has always felt at home in the red dust of Africa. Fuller’s memories resonate with me, because even though Zimbabwe and South Africa are separate places, they have always struggled together.

And for the white girl I am; this book was a reminder of my history.

Born in 1991, three years before democracy; I have known no life other than freedom. However, twenty one years after the constitution was signed; I am still realizing the remnants of my privilege.

Fuller does not tread lightly when it comes to race and the despicable things perpetrated by the Rhodesians. She calls the coloniser out for who he is and the absolute hell he has wrought.  She speaks openly about the hatred and the inequality and the war.

I have only fond memories of Rhodesia. My own mother grew up there. I remember my Grandmother’s farm.

A rolling orchard. Dried up skins abandoned by snakes. Robert Mugabe speaking on the grainy box TV. A pillow embroidered by Granny Babwe (she lived in Zim – therefore that must be her name). And yet I had been shielded from the truth. A history and a home built from the blood and sweat of an entire people.

Fuller proudly reminisces. She is not ashamed of her roots but she is honest about them. She knows that she cannot change the past but she can change how she goes forward. And this gave me hope.

For the white African, it seems a gargantuan task. I cannot win. I am happy in my own privilege.

But I want to challenge myself to be different. To try. To continue to read, to educate myself.

To listen.

To try my best to understand that apartheid was not just the restricting of jobs and homes and swimming pools. It was the robbing of an identity and a fair chance.

And I want to challenge you, to call out those friends of yours around the braai who speak of “No chance for a white man in South Africa”.

And your mom when she says “look at all these Muslims”.

And every subtle but derisive thing that you hear your friends and family and tannie’s in the shop say.

Because if you truly want freedom and a place in this beautiful dusty place we call home, then best you deserve it.

Read the book. It is just gorgeous.

xxxx